The meat product market has, in recent years, seen a substantial increase in the consumption of products which have been converted into individual portions, such as minced or breadcrumbed meats. In parallel, the consumption of traditional means (steak, whole chicken) has decreased. The consumer, in fact, seeks foods of constant quality.
Another development in the meat industry is that intermediate products are more and more often supplied to the manufacturer, who prepares the final product intended for sale. These intermediate products--or "ore"--are in fact small pieces of meat. The manufacturer can then measure out, as advantageously as possible, the various constituents in its preparation (fat, lean, etc.) in order to obtain a final product of constant quality. This development is more particularly applicable in the sector of breadcrumbed or minced meats as well as in that of cooked or dry pork-butchery.
Of course, this ore must have precise characteristics:
the nature of the meat must be easily identifiable; PA1 the structure of the muscle fibers must remain intact; PA1 the meat must have undergone little pressure likely to extrude the fats and the water outside the muscle mass, thereby promoting the formation of emulsions; it is important to avoid these emulsions since they are both undesirable for the subsequent manufacture of certain final products and responsible for a phenomenon of coating of the lean meat which can hamper optical analysis of the composition of the ore (determination of fat/lean ratio); PA1 the pieces must have a uniform shape; PA1 the meat must have a minimum of pieces of small size (fines) which promote the emulsion. PA1 the shaping device consists of two parts which may be interchangeable, namely PA1 a part in the form of a funnel having an entrance of substantially circular section and an exit of elongated rectangular section, and PA1 an extrusion device of parallelepipedal form, whose section is substantially identical to that of the exit of the part in the form of a funnel; PA1 the large faces of the extrusion device have longitudinal slots disposed opposite one another in pairs, intended to receive the cutting members of the longitudinal cutting means; PA1 said longitudinal cutting means consist of rotating disks which interact with a cylinder of movable counter-blades; PA1 the transverse cutting means are disposed at the exit of the shaping device; PA1 the transverse cutting means consist of a guillotine blade; PA1 the part in the form of a funnel is pivotably mounted, and a dual-effect jack is provided, which is capable of pivoting the funnel upwards through an angle of approximately 90.degree., which makes it possible to remove from the latter the blocks of meat which have not been cut up (residue from the operation).
Devices making it possible to obtain this ore and, consequently, capable of cutting the meat three-dimensionally have already been proposed.
Thus, a device is know in which the meat is extruded in strips through a grid, a transversely rotating knife being located behind this grid. Unfortunately, this type of device is unsuitable for obtaining an ore possessing the characteristics described above. In fact, the meat undergoes very great pressure as it passes through the grid. Consequently, the meat is denatured and the emulsion rate is very high.
Moreover, know machines do not make it possible to continuously supply the device for cutting up meats.